2009–10 R.S.C. Anderlecht season

RSC Anderlecht competed in the Belgian League and Cup in 2009–10. Anderlecht also took part in the UEFA Champions League, but failed to progress through the qualifying rounds and thus qualified for the UEFA Europa League.

Key events

5 June: Following the Fortis takeover, BNP Paribas will now feature as sponsor on the Anderlecht shirts.[1]
17 June: Hervé Kage moves to Charleroi on a free transfer. At Anderlecht, the 20-year-old had never made it into the first squad.[2]
24 June: Czech defender Ondřej Mazuch joins the squad as he is loaned for one season from Italian giants Fiorentina. In the contract there is also an option to buy him at the end of the season.[3]
25 June: In the new Superleague Formula season, the Anderlecht racing team will be represented by Dutch driver Yelmer Buurman. Last season's driver Craig Dolby moves to Tottenham Hotspur.[4]
30 June: The sponsor deal with BNP Paribas is now fully sealed, the contract will initially just be for one year, until the end of the current season.[5]
30 June: During a collision while training, Cheikhou Kouyaté fractures his Zygomatic bone, causing him to be out for two months.[6]
20 July: After half a year of recovering from various injuries in Argentina, Anderlecht's goal getter Nicolás Frutos returns to Belgium and immediately claims to be fit enough to play.[7]
24 July: Anderlecht presents itself to the press for the new season. Although few transfers were made, the staff claims the team has "definitely improved" compared to last season.[8]
27 July: Just one day before the vital UEFA Champions League match against Sivasspor, the news spreads that Jelle Van Damme shows interest in leaving the club immediately as he "needs a challenge" and would like to "play at a club sure of Champions League participation". He is still under contract for two more seasons however and coach Ariël Jacobs therefore neglects his requests and uses Van Damme in his starting lineup against Sivasspor. This made it impossible for him to play at any other team in the Champions League this season. As Van Damme claimed to be offered a contract by an unnamed club with negotiations pending, Anderlecht suspected Standard Liège to have offered him a contract to destabilize Anderlecht. Standard however have denied this.[9]
3 August: Argentinian midfielder Hernán Losada is loaned out for one season to Dutch team Heerenveen.[10]
30 August: In the Jupiler Pro League, the two best teams of last season play each other as Anderlecht receives Standard at home, which results in an extremely rough and chaotic match. After a wild and gruesome tackle, Standard's Axel Witsel causes multiple open fractures in both the calf and tibia of Marcin Wasilewski, leaving him sidelined for a very long period of time, with estimates going from 8 to 13 months after several successful operations. In the same match Jan Polák tore the ligaments in his knee after contact with Igor De Camargo, leaving him out for probably about half a year. As a result of this match, Axel Witsel got suspended for eight matches in the Belgian League and received numerous anonymous death threats, together with Standard captain Steven Defour. Witsel was removed from the cover of the upcoming Panini sticker album of the Jupiler Pro League. Anderlecht coach Ariël Jacobs expressed his disgust in football and claimed he had "enough of it all", insinuating to quit at the end of the season when his contract ends. Standard sponsor BASE reacted by naming "the brutal tackle by Witsel untolerable" and claimed to support any penalty the club would give Witsel. After the earlier trouble concerning Jelle Van Damme near the end of July, both the staff of Anderlecht and Standard agree to meet and reconcile their differences for the good of Belgian football. Also, the match ended in a 1–1 draw.[11]
31 August: Just before the end of the transfer deadline, 22-year-old Ukrainian winger Oleksandr Yakovenko is loaned out for one season to Westerlo.[12]
21 September: Just recently recovered from his previous injury, Cheikhou Kouyaté now fractures his nose after colliding with Marko Šuler in the match versus Gent, causing him to be out for another six weeks.[13]
30 October: In contrary to earlier statements that he would be leaving, Ariël Jacobs signs a new contract for two more seasons at Anderlecht.[14]

Players

N	Pos.	Name	Age	EU	Since	Ends	Transfer fee
25	GK	Bruzzese	20	EU	2007
28	GK	Cordier	25	EU	2009
22	GK	Schollen	31	EU	2006	2009
24	GK	Proto	26	EU	2006	2009
1	GK	Zítka	34	EU	2002	2010
27	RB	Wasilewski	29	EU	2007	2011
26	CB	Bernárdez	27	Non-EU	2009	2009
23	CB	Juhász	26	EU	2003	2011
4	CB	Kruiswijk	25	EU	2008	2012
2	CB	Mazuch	20	EU	2009	2009	On loan from Fiorentina
44	CB	Rnić	25	EU	2008	2011	Free
6	CB	Van Damme	26	EU	2006	2010
3	LB	Deschacht (VC)	28	EU	1996	2011
5	DM	Biglia	23	Non-EU	2006	2010
30	DM	Gillet	24	EU	2008	2013
12	AM	Chatelle	28	EU	2008	2011
13	AM	Legear	22	EU	2003	2011
11	MF	Boussoufa	25	EU	2006	2012
35	MF	Crommen	18	EU			Youth system
32	MF	Diandy	20	EU	2009
16	MF	Kouyaté	20	EU	2008
34	MF	Mukendi	18	EU	2008
8	MF	Polák	28	EU	2007	2011
37	MF	Reynaldo	20	EU	2008	2011
99	MF	Saré	19	Non-EU	2007		Youth system
21	CF	De Sutter	24	EU	2009	2013
19	CF	Frutos	28	Non-EU	2005	2010
10	CF	Kanu	22	EU	2008		Youth system
36	CF	Lukaku	16	EU	2009		Youth system
9	CF	Suárez	21	Non-EU	2008	2013	€1.2M

Last updated: 25 October 2009
Source:rsca.be, players' Wikipedia articles, soccerbase.com, ESPN (for appearances and goals) and footballdatabase.com (for EU passport, contract ending and transfer fee)
Ordered by position on pitch (from back right to front left).

Jupiler Pro League

Classification

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Anderlecht (C, O)	28	22	3	3	62	20	+42	69	Qualification to Championship play-offs
2	Club Brugge	28	17	6	5	52	33	+19	57
3	Gent	28	14	7	7	49	30	+19	49
4	Kortrijk	28	12	9	7	39	30	+9	45
5	Sint-Truiden	28	12	6	10	35	35	0	42

Source: soccerway.com
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) number of matches won; if teams are still tied a playoff is organised.
(C) Champion; (O) Play-off winner.

Results summary

Overall								Home						Away
Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
28	22	3	3	62	20	+42	69	11	2	1	27	10	+17	11	1	2	35	10	+25

Source: Jupiler League

Results by round

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
Ground	A	H	H	A	H	A	H	A	H	A	H	A	H	A	H	H	A	A	H	A	H	A		A	H	H	A	A	H	A
Result	W	W	W	W	D	L	D	W	W	L	W	W	W	W	W	W	W	W	P	D	W	W		L	W	W	W	W	W	W
Position	3	1	1	1	1	3	3	2	1	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

Source: Competitive Matches and Soccerassociation.com
A = Away; H = Home; W = Win; D = Draw; L = Loss; P = Postponed

Results by opponent

Team	Results		Points
Team	Home	Away	Points
Cercle Brugge	3–2	3–1	6
Charleroi	2–0	2–0	6
Club Brugge	3–2	2–4	3
Genk	2–0	2–0	6
Gent	1–1	2–2	2
Germinal Beerschot	1–0	5–0	6
Kortrijk	1–0	2–0	6
Lokeren	2–0	4–0	6
Mechelen	2–0	2–0	6
~~Mouscron~~	/	/	0
Roeselare	3–1	2–1	6
Sint-Truiden	1–2	1–2	0
Standard Liège	1–1	4–0	4
Westerlo	3–0	2–0	6
Zulte-Waregem	2–1	2–0	6

Source: Belgian First Division 2009-10 article

Competitive matches

Game

Date

Tournament

Round

Ground

Opponent

Score¹

Report

1

28 July

UEFA Champions League

QR3

H

Sivasspor

5 – 0

Anderlecht	Sivasspor
Report	Report link
Kick off	20:45 CET
Referee	Craig Thomson
17', 76' De Sutter 22' Boussoufa 32' Chatelle 90+2' Frutos 64' Van Damme	26' Dereli 35' Bayrak 64' Tuncer

2

1 August